Smartest Man in America says God exists

Originally posted by AfterInfinity
reply to post by windword

 

I can accept Langan's logic of a universal intelligent mind

Consciousness leads to awareness. Awareness leads to thought. Thought leads to emotion, which leads to bias, which leads to judgment, which leads to intervention. Not to mention how omniscience plays into such a snowball effect. Imagine the insanity of knowing exactly what every player feels, knowing the cold steel of the pistol in your hand and the ruthless adrenaline tightening your finger even as you know the terror of the man laying on the ground in front of you, and the horror of his children watching, and the helplessness of his wife trying to protect them from the sight of your cruelty...How could anyone withstand such a hodgepodge of emotional turmoil?

Of course, one must have an understanding of what exactly omniscience entails. Does omniscience apply to the self? Can omniscience be controlled? Is omniscience capable of allowing room for independent cognitive functions? No one knows any of this. Therefore, all theories centered around such an idea must be speculative at best.

edit on 4-1-2013 by AfterInfinity because: (no reason given)

I can't apply human characteristics, emotions, horror, confusion etc. to "the cosmic universal mind." However, the interdependency of all things upon one another is a quite interesting and compelling conundrum, in considering the existence of such a thing.

I don't believe, however, that God or that "universal intelligence" exists outside of the universe, and an omniscient supernatural being, with emotions and needs, created the universe out of nothing.

reply to post by windword


I actually find it more fascinating to explore the human need to have a god...oftentimes, exploring that side of our nature leads to rather profound revelations concerning our relationship with the divine. Therein, you might find a grain of truth to suckle on in your journey to the unknown.

Some of you might like this little booklet that I previously posted some excerpts from:

It is new way of describing what God is---a bit more in the non-duality way or maybe more in line with quantum physics. I feel it is nice to read this, because it takes the word "God" out the common box wherein we can see the Truth, Reality, God has no religion.

Here it is:

www.williamsamuel.com...

Don't let the author's down home style in the beginning of the book stop you from reading on--- He really has some most amazing points and analogies as you continue to read further---

reply to post by NewAgeMan

In causality terms, this is called a downward causation, or what Bernard Haische has referred to as an "intelligent subtraction from, the absolute formless potential" relative to which everything that exists, exists (compliments of AfterInfinity's "flaw") in order to make our experience possible, making of us and this experience,

If by “flaw” you mean my theory of perfection, in which imperfection provides the perfect existence, then yes. You mentioned the “ultimate objective reality”: this can only occur when an absolute value is applied to every possibility of an instance in existence, whatever shape it may take. Not only does our emotional nature make it difficult to ascribe a purely logical value to every possibility, the walls we have placed around our imagination makes it double difficult as we limit our ability to imagine the potential for any given object or situation. These walls can be placed for whatever reason, whether it be tradition or simple fear.

Another concept I have mentioned is the imprisonment of ideas by labeling them. The moment you have expressed an idea, you have described a set of parameters that provide varying limitations on the idea, laying down a list of rules for that impression you are attempting to convey. These rules are established to make communication easier, a universal understanding of all ideas conveyed in this manner. Unfortunately, this means that the idea attains a kind of immortality, depending on who defines it. It will forever remain young, never growing and evolving because it has been placed in a box built from those parameters given in the defining. This is a crucial factor in the process of recognizing the ultimate objective reality, given that all explicit knowledge requires explicit translation, and all translation is imperfect. Which means no matter what you do, you will never be able to tell the exact truth. You will only be able to impart your impression of it. And really, that is the most accurate statement that can be made of the Bible – it is an impression of a truth.

Taking the above paragraphs into careful consideration, it is quite understandable and thoroughly predictable that we would have such a difficult time defining, let alone understanding, such a force as we're increasingly determined to throw our very souls at. And our desperation, our rush to save ourselves, only exacerbates the problem.

the outward manifestation of the eternal Godhead, with intent ie: by superintelligent design.

I don't know about superintelligent...as I've already said:

Consciousness leads to awareness. Awareness leads to thought. Thought leads to emotion, which leads to bias, which leads to judgment, which leads to intervention.

Superintelligence seems to work only as long as the superintelligent being can recognize its own flaws, and they never seem to, oddly enough. Their consistent superiority to other creatures leads to an inevitable rift that emphasizes the difference in capbilities, which, more often than not, leads to the conclusion that one must be more advanced (read: more awesome, deserving, worthy, etc) than the other. This is where righteousness comes into play. You know, the tendency to judge.

Referring back to my comment about assigning absolute values to the full range of possibilities associated with every particular instance of reality, it is difficult to imagine any being capable of judgment not being compromised at some point. When something as personal as this “God” is presented an opportunity to save a life or claim it, it's akin to deciding whether to swim or drown. If he were to fight for someone on earth, it would be like fighting for himself, because he designed, created, guided, and will ultimately condemn or save every soul that exists. This introduces familiar territory – not only did he create each and every soul, he also determined every aspect of the world they would live in, and so every absolute value they possess were foreseen and crafted by him. Of course, being a superintelligent being complete with emotions, they obviously would be loathe to admit any flaws on their part. They are more advanced. They are the creator, the master. It is IMPOSSIBLE for them to be structurally inferior to anything in any way, especially in regards to their own creations! This is just one possibility for a superintelligent god. One of the more likely possibilities, actually. You can see it written everywhere in the Bible. For someone so bent on teaching his children humility, he seems to be lacking some himself.

Anyway...With tall of this in mind, it logically follows that any form of intervention is foreseen and planned, and any lack thereof was also determined long beforehand. In this sense, is there any degree of impartiality? Not a chance. Unless! There is one possibility...deliberate blind spots in his omniscience. There's one problem with that idea, however.

Never once in the Bible does he confess to such a deed. Never once does he admit such a precaution, nor do his people give such an impression. Therefore, there can be no blind spots, correct? Everything has always been planned from the beginning to the end of time. Every flaw, every triumph, and every intervention and condemnation...he saw it coming. He designed it. If this is so, then there is truly no free will. Either he is not omniscient, or he is playing a vicious game of chess with all of us.

It is difficult to accept such an idea and not succumb to the darkness of the heart. This is why I do not subscribe to Christianity, because most Christians are not aware of exactly what kind of bargain they have sold their souls for. One of the main differences between Satanism and Christianity is that Satanism is more honest about what it wants. Satanists largely serve themselves; many Christians (not all of them, mind you) serve others under the guise of good will, but tell me...how many would continue such a practice if they were told that for every person they helped out of the kindness of their heart, they would earn a hundred years in hell? How many would exercise compassion and empathy if such actions earned their condemnation?

The only intent I see in the world is to establish order. The order of nature, the laws of physics. Create stability so as to allow life the chance to experience. What we choose to do with that experience is our decision, but we must realize that positive and negative are not mutually exclusive. Nothing negative can happen without positive, and vice versa. The only obstruction is how far we are willing to look. And really, we have always been our own obstacles. We are, in actuality, the greatest example of order. Unfortunately, our limited perceptions prevents us from realizing the exact nature of order. Thus, we continue to fight the balance in favor of our own ideals – ideals we have developed using our tiny broken mirrors.

lo and behold there was a two horned ram caught up in a thicket nearby, already prepared as a sacrifice, so it's obvious that even back then God was always "ahead of the curve" so to speak. An intriguing related factoid -

This supports the points I made earlier. “God” is, reportedly, in complete control. Yet all signs indicate a lack of control. No matter which way you slice it, he has chosen to allow pain in a world struggling to meet his expectations, all because he didn't create his perfect model on the first try. According to the Bible, anyway. Need I quote Epicurus again? He makes a very clear case that I have not yet seen refuted.

Tying it all back to the topic at hand...this “smartest man” made a mistake in using the word “God”. There is far too much baggage, far too much immaturity in the word. It is a superstitious label that speaks volumes on the subject of desperately grasping for straws in the absence of true understanding. Not generally a word I would employ in the description of any universal construct outside of a mythology discussion. My opinion, of course.

reply to post by LesMisanthrope


As far as logic goes, I think the CTMU brings up some very good points, namely that 'science' has so far been unable to provide any solid answers, and that we must consider our perspective and human understanding rather than an entirely empirical solution. I'm not sure why he has a need to add further assumption by wanting to insert a theological perspective, but at least logically he seems to be on the right track. Natural selection on a cosmic scale could be a sign of an intelligence. I cannot deny that.

While I cringe at the necessity of relying upon “perspective and human understanding” to formulate anything that can be considered an answer, I can see the utility of such methods. The unfortunate result is that each consequent theory involves a varying degree of assumption, influenced by a number of psychological factors.

This is where logic become unlogic in an attempt to fill in the blanks.

As to the last two lines of your post: as I have pointed out before, the mathematical odds of this world beginning precisely as it is today were approximately 10 to the 180th power. You could say we are extremely lucky, but I find that doubtful considering it was a staggered gamble. It wasn't one toss, it was hundreds of consecutive tosses that all landed true. It reeks of loaded die. Intelligence is not exactly necessary, considering the purported happenstance of physics created an entire table of stable combinations for the assortment of particles that resulted from the Big Bang.

And atomic particles aren't intelligent, right? But I would argue for a natural algorithm (a label I use for quantified laws of nature) that uses chaos to craft order.

Just my thoughts in response to your post.

reply to post by NihilistSanta


Sorry for the delay in replying. Life got busy here with the new year.

I'd like to point out a few things really quick before I get into the meat of things.

1) The Irish beheaded, was on the authority of the Church, and for the glory of God. Political reasons were attached, but it was done by missionaries. Same with the slaughter of Germanic pagans for not paying Church taxes. The Crusades as well, were lead to reclaim the Holy Land from Muslims, in the name of God. There have been plenty of politically-motivated acts of violence in history. But those ones were driven by faith first, and politics second.

2) Atheism and Communism do not follow hand-in-hand. Not all atheists are Communists, and not all Communists are atheists. The abhorrent actions you reference were committed by despots and dictators. Not atheists. If you want to play that kind of game though, I can always point to Hitler's Christian faith. I tend to avoid that though, because I understand that his faith was secondary to his political actions; likewise, atheism was secondary to tyranny in Communist nations.

The age of cultures. Sumer (where Ur, Erech, Kish, and the other city-states of that time originated) was a civilization from roughly 4000 BCE until about 2200 BCE when the Akkadian empire conquered them. So, all of the texts I mentioned in my previous post as dating to Sumer (economic documents, Ludlul Bêl Nimeqi, Ziusudra) and a host of other poetic works, hymns, and school lessons are all older than Abraham's supposed existence. Abraham was a Semite; the Sumerians were not Semitic.

The historicity of a thing depends on corroborating evidence. We have nothing to corroborate a Biblical flood or Noah's ark; we have no evidence of two cities which were rained down upon by fire and brimstone; we have no evidence of the Garden of Eden, of talking snakes, of all human beings coming from two individuals. Even a majority of the historical figures mentioned and discussed in the Bible were actually much different than what the Bible says about them. This website does a very good job of explaining how much of the "history" in the Bible is inaccurate.

What we do have, are older variations of the myths found in the Bible. Ziusudra is a flood-myth where a single loyal follower is told to build an ark, save two of every animal, and bring his family on board to avoid a flood which is coming to purge the human race. The Paradise Myth featuring Enki and Ninhursag, and the Enuma Elish featuring Marduk both have the masculine deity sculpting human beings out of clay and filling them with breath/spirit. In the Ludlul Bêl Nimeqi we have the tragic tale of a faithful servant who suffers great evil, despite his righteousness and devout love for his patron god.

The Bible is, if not plagiarized, stolen mythology. If you believe YHVH's account of a global flood to purge humans, why do you not believe Enlil's? You must willfully choose to believe in one over the other; and then you must perform some kind of special pleading to account for why the reason you don't believe the Sumerian one, does not apply to the Christian one.

As for originality in human thought, I don't need to claim it. Only show that the Bible is not original. I have done this, as have other scholars, historians, anthropologists, and mythographers. I stopped believing in Christianity when I learned that everything it has to offer, every other faith in Western Asia offered before it. The Jews, Christians, and Muslims killed all of those people in an attempt to erase that fact.

But they weren't able to.

The truth lives on. Believe in what you want; I don't have a qualm with free practice of belief. My problem is when someone takes something which is clearly inauthentic, criticizes the source, and then tries to say their imitation is both better, and original.

~ Wandering Scribe.